Much has been said about being in the present.It’s the place to be, according to the gurus,like the latest club on the downtown scene,but no one, it seems, is able to give you directions.

It doesn’t seem desirable or even possibleto wake up every morning and beginleaping from one second into the nextuntil you fall exhausted back into bed.

Plush, there’d be no pastwith so many scenes to savor and regret,and no future, the place you will diebut not before flying around with a jet-pack.

The trouble with the present isthat it’s always in a state of vanishing.Take the second it takes to endthis sentence with a period–already gone.

What about the moment that existsbetween banging your thumb with a hammer and realizingyou are in a whole lot of pain?

What about the one that occursafter you hear the punch linebut before you get the joke?Is the where the wise men want us to live

in that intervening tick, the time slotthat occurs after you have spent hourssearching downtown for that new cluband just before you die up and head back home?(THE RAIN IN PORTUGAL, Random House, 2016)

and even harder to believe a 6 year old daughter and a four year old son;

We didn’t have the Internet per se

We didn’t have Smart phones

We didn’t have the pharmaceuticals

We didn’t have the technology

We didn’t have the therapies

We didn’t have the interventions

We didn’t have the supports

we have on this new world of

N O W

People died then

as they do today. . .

Death hasn’t been eradicated

and though we have new ways to prolong and temporarily escape it

it’s still an unseen death on each of our

C A L E N D A R S

I found out early on then

what’s impossible for me to ever forget:

PEOPLE DIE BUT OUR LOVE DOESN’T

DEATH TAKES A PERSON, BUT NEVER A RELATIONSHIP

and that one day

my heart will no longer beat

my lungs won’t inhale/exhale

my pulse will be absent

. . .and I will have said

what I have said on countless other’s behalves:

TO THE LIVING I AM GONETO THE SORROWFUL I WILL NEVER RETURNTO THE ANGRY I WAS CHEATEDTO THE HAPPY I AM AT PEACETO THE FAITHFUL I HAVE NEVER LEFTI CAN’T BE SEEN BUT I CAN STILL HEARI CAN’T SPEAK BUT I CAN STILL LISTENSO AS STAND ON A SHORE LOOKING AT THE SEAOR THE BEAUTY OF A FLOWERREMEMBER ME,THE TIMES WE’VE FOUGHTTHE TIMES WE’VE CRIEDTHE TIMES WE’VE LAUGHEDTHE TIMES WE’VE LOVEDFOR IF YOU ALWAYS THINK OF MEI WILL HAVE NEVER GONE. . .

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My name is Chuck Behrens, serving others to help others serve. I value your time and take your readership seriously. Follow along and together lets become Expert Members of Triple A: Accessible. Accountable. Available.